LEXINGTON, Ky.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Lumenari, the leader in narrow-bandwidth LED phosphors for LCD display backlighting applications, today announces it has closed a $3 million Series A funding led by TJ Rodgers, Jeremy Blank, Revolution’s “Rise of the Rest” Seed Fund and Hanover Partners. The company will use the capital to complete an advanced lab-scale manufacturing line for its leading edge technology Emerald™, establish testing partnerships with packaged LED suppliers and pass initial qualification testing. Through this expansion, Lumenari expects to demonstrate market acceptance and revenue growth.
Lumenari’s industry-first offering, Emerald, gives OEMs the ability to expand the color gamut and range in their displays spanning televisions, tablets, laptops, computer monitors and smartphones. According to the September 2018 Display Panel Market Forecast (2018-2023) published by Mordor Intelligence the display panel market was valued at $164 billion in 2017, which is expected to reach a value of $235 billion by 2023, registering a CAGR of over 6.2% during the 2018-2023 forecast period.
“Lumenari’s breakthrough technology Emerald is well-timed with the rapidly increasing demand by display manufacturers for a broader color gamut and a brighter display,” said TJ Rodgers, founder and ex-CEO of Cypress Semiconductor. “We see the market moving towards wide color gamut displays, for which Lumenari offers a powerful solution that will minimize brightness degradation and color shift.”
“Our investment approach is to look for companies that pioneer new approaches to disrupt large industries and leverage markets. The explosion of content and consumer demand for high quality displays on all devices, whether TV, computer or mobile, sets the stage for Lumenari’s Emerald technology,” said J.D. Vance, managing partner of Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund. “Lumenari moved from Silicon Valley to Lexington, KY and serves as another example of a great company choosing to scale outside of the coastal tech hubs.”
“Between our revolutionary product Emerald, this infusion of smart capital and our world-class team, we couldn’t be more eager to accelerate our go-to-market strategy and allow OEMs and display manufacturers to achieve something cutting-edge,” said Robert Nordsell, Co-founder and CEO of Lumenari.
For more information on Lumenari and its Emerald LED phosphor, please visit www.lumenariinc.com.
About Lumenari
Lumenari is a leading narrow-bandwidth LED phosphor company that provides OEMs, packaged LED suppliers and display manufacturers with new phosphor technology Emerald™ that expands the color gamut and range in displays spanning televisions, tablets, laptops, computer monitors and smartphones.
Launched in 2013, Lumenari is based in Lexington, Kentucky. The company’s investors include TJ Rodgers, Jeremy Blank, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund (led by Revolution CEO Steve Case and Rise of the Rest Managing Partner JD Vance) and Hanover Partners as well as several prominent angel investors Band of Angels, Bluegrass Angels, Kentucky Science & Technology Corporation and Commonwealth Seed Capital.
